Editorial: Nekkid nymph still mocking Alabama

UNFORTUNATELY FOR Alabama, the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s embarrassing ban on the sale of wine bottles featuring a 19th century depiction of a nude nymph excited free-speech advocates in Virginia.

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression recently gave one of its annual "Muzzle" awards to Alabama’s censorious monitors of alcoholic beverage containers. The center awards Muzzles to honor what it sees as dubious achievements in the suppression of First Amendment rights.

It’s debatable whether the ABC board’s ban on the nekkid nymph rises to the dignity of a First Amendment issue. But it definitely does expose Alabama to national ridicule with the familiar comedic theme of "Can you believe those hicks down there?"

The state got its 15 minutes as the butt of jokes last year when the ABC board declared the nymph on the Cycles Gladiator wine bottles "immodest" and inappropriately "sensuous."

Ironically, the nymph comes from an advertising poster created by a French artist during the supposedly strait-laced Victorian era. Like many artistic renderings of figures from classical mythology, the nymph is indeed naked; nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine she would elicit a prurient response in this post-modern age of raunchy entertainment and constant TV advertising for erectile dysfunction drugs.

In the eyes of the nation, the flap over the nekkid nymph makes Alabama look ridiculous. That’s a good enough reason for the folks at the ABC board to concentrate on their main duty and abandon the job of scrutinizing nude nymphs.